OAR Rules
Open Adventure Room The Open Adventure Room (OAR) is a place where Players can go to make their own Encounters and gain experience if they wish to become a GM. However, this is not a place to just come to grind out ERs so you can level up quickly. GM monitoring will help prevent this. Please, don't try to abuse this system. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy your time using the OAR. Rules * Must follow the rules that the GMs and Players have to follow normally. This includes the rules listed on the Read First page, and any limitation to classes, books, and etc listed in their proper location. * Needs to be approved by a GM. * Needs to have a GM Spectator that has the OAR Plan. * Minimum player requirement of 3, not including the Player GM. * Maximum player capacity of 6, not including Player GM. * Stay Classy. * Have fun! * (5/2/16 Addition) The party must all be in a three level range. (Ex. 5-7; 4-6; etc) * (5/2/16 Addition) The spectating GM (There is only one, unless the GM has to leave, and they cannot be playing) receives credit from the OAR. * (7/26/17 Addition) The OAR may now be up to a maximum of 5 points, but there is more complication added to the process (See Below). * (8/25/17 Clarification) OARs cannot be Arenas. This has long been spoken, but not written down. * (3/22/18 Addition) The OAR limit on the number of OARs you can run and play in. The GM team will still be monitoring the OARs in order to prevent Point Farming. Death Death is quite possible in the OAR despite it being player run. However, it has different consequences here than in a normal ER, depending on the number of points (See above chart). Should you die in an OAR, you are most likely not actually dead in VLC, but you will have to pay to remove at least 1 negative level. This is to make sure that people still keep in mind that reckless behavior is still not wise, but not punish them too severely should something go wrong in the OAR. You cannot reduce this negative level through effects like Death Ward, Racial Abilities that eliminate negative levels, or any other means besides getting a Restoration. Furthermore, you can only take a number of negative levels, at one time, equal to your level minus one (Ex. A level 3 can take 2 negative levels). You may still go on an OAR even if you could not take any more negative levels (Such as a level 1). Please see the Death page for clarification on dying in VLC. Getting Approved So you want to run an OAR? Good! Well, we want to make the experience as easy and painless for you and us. So let's begin by covering the basics of what you'll need to get an OAR approved (Suggested medium is a Google Document): * General Plot of the OAR (Why is the party being hired? What do they need to do? Et cetera.). * The Party Range you are going for (Ex. 5-7, 4-6, 1-3, etc). * Proposed number of Points you are going after. * Creatures being fought with links to stat blocks (Or if custom, include stat block in document) and number of them. * Any Traps or Puzzles being encountered with an explained solution. * If any important NPCs, list them, explain their importance, and why they are there (This is doubly so for any Canon NPC). * Any optional rules system being used (Underwater, Siege weapons, etc) * Suggested: A list of potential Bonus and Failure Conditions. Now you have all that information at the ready in some form of document, you'll now need an appropriate GM for the matter (Any for 1-4 Points; Council for 5 points). To get one, post in the Ask-a-GM channel, but do not post your plan there! Any player can see that channel and view your plan if you do. Politely ask if a GM has time to look over your document, and we will get to it as soon as we can. If it is your first OAR, you need to get an approved idea before getting GM'd in the Open Adventure Room. Getting a Spectator Once you are approved, you may now start building the OAR, though repeat OAR GMs may build the OAR before getting approved. Feel free to ask the GMs for advice on all of the many options Roll20 offers, and we will do our best to assist. However, once that is done, and you have been given approval. You now need a Spectating GM. This does not need to be the GM who approved the idea, but getting them is the best option. If not them, and sometimes even if them, make sure to send them the document to look over. They need to be ready for what comes. After reading the OAR Plan, they will give either their time to you or not, sometimes a GM that can't handle a certain rules system or scenario thrown at them, it's okay. Just find a new GM and repeat. If they do accept the role of spectating GM, they will work with you on a time that works for both of you. Once the time comes, then the GM will make an ER Alert, drop a box, help select a party if you need it, and then eventually transfer the sheets to the OAR. We politely ask that you clean up your extra sheets and maps to help keep the OAR organized, clean, and lag free. Generating the Report Wahoo! You finished your OAR! However, the job is not done yet. Next up comes, generating the Open Adventure Room Report, or OARRT for short. Inside the OAR is a template to copy and paste to help get you started, but there are some common mistakes made. The OAR Code The code looks something like this: OAR-CR-0806171504. To break that down, it is Month, Day, Year, Hour, and Minutes (08/06/17 3:04 PM). You only ever use two spaces for each grouping. Year always uses the last two numbers. The time and date is at the point in which the OAR ends, and must be in PST time. The Conditions One common question we get is how do you determine how many points a fight is worth, or how the conditions work. One Point is actually two conditions, with a Condition being Combat, Player RP, NPC RP, and Puzzles/Traps. Of these four choices, no more than the number of Points granted by the OAR can be in any one section (Ex. 2 point OAR can only have a max of 2 conditions in Puzzles/Traps, but can have another condition in Player RP and Combat). But what constitutes a condition, you might ask. A CR appropriate fight is one condition. A CR appropriate trap (or set of traps Bear Traps) is one condition. This is more difficult to judge for player RP and NPC RP, but a good rule of thumb is that thirty minutes of nothing but RP is one condition. This may piece together multiple sections to get one condition, but it is the Player GM and Spectating GM's final say on what counts. Finally, you add up all of the conditions to figure the number of points. 2 Conditions equals 1 Point. The Points This is touched upon slightly above, but still has many more aspects to it. What does a Two Point OAR mean? A two point OAR means that you get 2 Experience Points, 2 Downtime Points, 2 Loot Points, 2 Item Accesses, and up to 2 Bonus Points. If a One Point OAR, change all the numbers from 2 to 1. As stated in the Conditions section, it takes two of them to get one point, meaning their should always be two times as many conditions as points. Bonus Points But, one of the clear differences is the Bonus Points, where it isn't always 2 Bonus Points. That is because the Bonus Points are made up of Bonus Conditions and Failure Conditions, which differ from Conditions. A Bonus Condition is something good and extra the party did, such as finding a hidden chest, saving someone they didn't need to, and so on. A Failure Condition is something bad and extra the party did, such as attacking the employer, damaging the relic, killing other party members, and etc.